If you're setting up a business and looking for low priced suppliers, then you've probably come across sites like Salehoo or Worldwide Brands. These are directories of wholesalers and drop shippers – suppliers that sell at trade prices either in large quantities (wholesalers) or dispatch individual items to your customers directly (drop shippers) and there are many places to find them online.

One of the main problems though is finding reliable suppliers. Like with many online businesses around the world, not all of them are reliable – or even legitimate. Some may sell fake goods passed off as top brands, while others just offer a poor service.

The easiest way to avoid scam wholesalers and dropshippers is to find them in an established directory – a database of suppliers that have all been checked, or at least 'screened' to prevent scams from getting through. Worldwide Brands, one of the leading directories, do a full check on suppliers before adding them to their database – even placing test orders and visiting the warehouses of new suppliers.

Buying through a directory like Salehoo or WWB is easy and safe, but it comes with a price. The membership fee for WWB is nearly $300 and Salehoo costs over $60 per year.